Abstract: A device for releasably fastening a cover slab to the opening of a crypt or niche extending back from a vertical support wall. Each device is positioned at a common point of adjacency of a plurality of slabs. Each device has a rotatively mounted locking plate for engaging slots in the sides of each of the slabs. The plate has a cutaway sized and dimensioned to allow for the passage of one of the slabs through the cutaway when the cutaway is rotated into proper alignment. A keyed tool may be used for turning the plate indicating the positioning of the cutaway. The plate is mounted to allow minor axial, pitch and yaw movement and is biased toward an axially perpendicular orientation.

Abstract: A self-erecting structure includes a series of fabric panels each tautly spread by a length of steel wire or other resiliently flexible, filiform material. The steel wire may form a closed loop, an open loop or a mere arc. The wire is selectively inserted into at least two of several pockets or fabric straps positioned around the periphery of the panel. The selection of the wire-holding pockets or straps defines the shape of the spread-out panel. Parts of the fabric which are not encompassed by a wire are held folded over it and against the spread-out portion. The shape of the structure can be quickly modified by repositioning of the wires.

Abstract: A vending machine is housed in a light, yet sturdy enclosure made of an external sheet metal shell and an internal seamless plastic liner between which a volume of expanded synthetic foam material is injected. One or more good-holding magazines are removably held within the enclosure. A keypad, alpha-numerical display and card reader are packaged in the door closing the front of the enclosure. A driving motor module and a coin acceptor are removably mounted against the inside liner. Due to the absence of complex or delicate structure, the machine can be serviced, cleaned and sanitized within minutes. A pair of vending machine, one holding snack food, the other beverage cans are coupled to work together and dispense combinations of items from a single control panel. Both the beverage and snack food holding magazines are driven from the same type of motor module mounted inside the liner.

Abstract: A heatsink assembly and method of fabrication and use for high power RF LDMOS transistors such as those used in mobile telephone basestation pre-antenna amplifiers wherein die attachment to the heatsink flange occurs prior to leadframe/spacer-to-flange bonding. Various bonding methods are disclosed which do not compromise the die-to-flange attachment bond. A unique leadframe/spacer/flange heatsink package is also disclosed which automatically properly orients attachment of the leadframe/spacer to the flange, and provides for a thickened spacer. A unique leadframe having contact projections also avoids later wire bonding. A unique leadframe/spacer/lid combination is disclosed which allows in one step the bonding of the leadframe to the flange, electrically contacting the die, and encapsulation.

Abstract: A roller skate has a light housed in a forward tip recess of a slab of synthetic material interposed between a boot and the roller truck. A lighted toggling push-button switch that espouses the back contour of the heel, can be activated by taping the back of the heel against the floor or any other stationary structure. The light comprises a battery compartment occupying the deepest area of the recess. A lens contoured to blend with the outline of the sole tip can be releasably snapped against the frontal opening of the battery compartment. A bulb-mounting assembly is held sandwiched between the lens and the battery compartment. The lights in the contoured tip lens and heel switch can be seen from either side of the skate.

Abstract: A portable, organized carrier for holding a variety of odd-sized goods includes two sets of layered, co-nesting, pocket-mounting flaps foldable around a comparted core area. The folded flaps are capped and clamped together by a pair of shell-like covers mounted at opposite longitudinal ends of the carrier. Shoulder and waist straps as well as a handle allow for use of the carrier as a backpack or a tote bag.

Abstract: A table game provides for realistic simulation of known athletes' performance in the context of a virtual game predicated upon the career statistics of those athletes, uses card carrying along one of their edges, space-proportioned zones representing the percentage of occurrence of each possible outcome of a player's move during that player's career. A random number generator drives a display of a series of individually selectable points or locations that are matched to one of the zones in order to determine the outcome of a virtual move. The game is particularly adapted to the simulation of baseball, cricket, basketball, or golf competitions.

Abstract: A device for preparing and injecting a polymeric bone cement under sterile, isobaric and isovolumic conditions includes a cylindrical vessel holding a volume of polymeric powder and a disk agitator mounted on a shaft passing through an aperture in a proximal end wall of the vessel and extending beyond the agitator though a delivery port in an opposite wall of the vessel. A piston can be selectively coupled to the disk in order to inject the contents of the vessel through the outlet port. The device can be packaged in a sterilized, evacuated envelope. The cement is ejected by breaking off a distal, tubular section of the shaft and mounting the broken off section over an external bushing surrounding the outlet port and moving the piston toward the outlet port to expel the contents of vessel.

Abstract: An articulated device for protecting the knee as well as above-the-knee and below-the-knee leg portions comprises a first part shaped and dimensioned to cup the knee and cradle a small section of the leg above it. A second part forming a greave for the below-the-knee portion of the leg is slidingly connected to a longitudinal plate which is hinged at its top to the lower edge of the first part. An adjustable elastomeric strap biases the second part away from the first part, allowing the two parts to move axially in relation to one another during flexion and extension of the knee, while keeping the device tautly against the leg and knee at all times.

Abstract: A window system using air loops to completely isolate air seals from water seals. As a result of the separation of air seals from water seals, the window system can tolerate imperfect seals anywhere in the system while maintaining high resistance to water infiltration.

Abstract: A microelectronic multilayer ceramic package combines a high temperature cofired ceramic (HTCC) module or carrier with a low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) module or carrier using a bonding interface layer of electrically nonconductive epoxy having electrically conductive regions for providing electrical interconnection between carriers. The bonding layer also has regions of thermally conductive material for interfacing heat sources on one carrier with heat dissipators on another carrier. The bonding layer also has apertures which allow prominent structures extending from one carrier to pass though and into a corresponding cavity in another carrier.

Abstract: A centralized method for selling items through a plurality of vending machines installed at various companies' sites comprises using vending machines having a substitutable goods-holding magazines from which goods can be extracted only when fully installed inside a vending machine and only by use of a special key when the magazines are outside their machines. The magazines are filled at the supply center and distributed along pre-established delivery routes. The servicing of each machine consists essentially of opening the machine, removing the previously installed magazine, substituting a new full magazine and securely locking the machine without any accounting of goods or currency or any other maintenance work.

Abstract: A self-deploying, collapsible and foldable fabric structure suitable for use as a shelter, shower stall or modesty screen in a changing room, comprises a base panel formed by a piece of fabric stretched over a flexible wire-looped frame. A series of additional flexible close wire-loop frames are mounted over the base panel at spaced-apart locations, and are covered with another piece of fabric to form a tubular enclosure.

Abstract: A self-erecting, collapsible fabric shelter structure whose armature comprises two or more panels, each formed by a resiliently flexible filiform loop, and a pair of resiliently bendable arcuate rods tensioned between each two adjacent panels. A piece of cloth is spread between the loop of each end panel to form the end walls, and another over the rods to form the roof of the structure. Each panel can be folded into three small rings by a 360 degree twist of its loop, causing the associated rods to conveniently coil around the rings to form a compact package.

Abstract: A light and compact vending machine suitable for use on a table or counter top, uses interchangeable magazines that can be preloaded with goods at a service center and quickly and conveniently installed on or removed from the machine. Each magazine has good-holding stations that differ in numbers and sizes. Each station has an access port on the front of the magazine toward which a spiral rack driven by a mechanism mounted in the machine moves goods. The currency accepted in payment for the goods is automatically dropped into a sealed receptacle at the bottom of the magazine. Each magazine is secured by a door that opens automatically only when the magazine is in place and the machine door has been locked. Personnel servicing the machine by replacing an empty one with a loaded one need not handle the goods or the cash. In some alternate embodiments of the invention, packaged goods and beverage cans slide down along slanted channels toward dispensing gates under their own weight.

Abstract: An imitation wax seal suitable for application to a document, package or container is injection-molded out of a semi-rigid plastic, then coated in the back with an adhesive temporarily protected by a peelable film. The fabrication mold accepts a variety of substitutable center escutcheon that can carry a variety of letters, symbols, and logo types. The seal is flexible enough to pass through post office automatic sorting and canceling equipment without breaking or coming loose. The seal is impregnated with a bee-wax scent or other pleasant fragrance.

Abstract: The invention involves an array of playing-cards playable by three or more persons, which delightfully spontaneous if unpredictable word, term, phrase, or picture comparison combinations, invites stimulating social-intercourse. Of the two essential sets of cards furnished with the basic OuickPik™-game iteration, an exemplified first set of Apple-cards each bear different pictures or terms generally derived from: “people, events, nature, places, things, etc.”; while a set of Orange-cards each may bear a picture or descriptive wording such as the terms—“bumpy, slow, magnificent”. Thus, Apple-cards are randomly issued for comparison as to which best typifies the Orange-card over the others,—hence comparing—“apples and oranges”; and a “quick-pick” feature takes the slowest player briefly out of contention,—thereby compelling an exciting rapid-pace.

Abstract: Vertebral strain relief is provided to a keyboard or other data input device operator by a support device attached to the desktop or other data input device-holding structure and projects obliquely and upwardly under the forearms and elbows of the operator to create the same type of upper body support provided by the arms of an armchair. The support structure comprises a pair of telescopic tubular members which provides for height and distance adjustment of the support member as well as its placement, in stowed position, in level contact with the edge of the working surface.

Abstract: A self-erecting, collapsible and foldable dome structure comprises an armature formed by two unconnected loops of resiliently flexible wire concentrically and orthogonally intersecting at the center of the structure, and being bent into a dome shaped configuration. The fabric cover comprises two commensurate cruciform sheets joined around their peripheries to form an envelope containing the armature, and a series of gore panels filing the gaps between the arms of the cruciform envelope.